Source: news24 Vatican City - Sexual and civic education in schools in Europe is an "attack" on religious freedom, Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday in a traditional annual address to foreign diplomats to the Vatican. "I cannot remain silent about another attack on the religious freedom of families in certain European countries which mandate obligatory participation in courses of sexual or civic education," the pope told the ambassadors. He said such courses "convey a neutral concept of the pe...

Source: guardian The acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison today, and banned from directing and producing films for the next 20 years, his lawyer said. Panahi, an outspoken supporter of Iran's opposition green movement, was convicted of gathering, colluding and propaganda against the regime, Farideh Gheyrat told the Iranian state news agency ISNA. "He is therefore sentenced to six years in prison and also he is banned for 20 years from making any films,...

Source: bbc Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been named the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The award, announced in Norway's capital Oslo, is certain to anger Beijing, which had earlier warned against the move. Ahead of the announcement, Norwegian Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland told local television he knew he would have to defend the choice. ... Mr Liu, 54, was jailed for 11 years on Christmas Day last year for drafting Charter 08, which called for multiparty democ...

Source: bbc US police say four people have been shot dead and three injured outside a restaurant in Buffalo, New York. The shooting took place outside the City Grill restaurant in the business district in the early hours of Saturday morning, police told the AP agency. There was a wedding reception taking place at the restaurant, but it is unclear whether anyone from the party was involved, they say. Three people died at the restaurant, and a fourth in hospital, they say. Read more: (Link)

Source: afp AFP - Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn poured cold water on Wyclef Jean's bid for the Haitian presidency on Wednesday, questioning the motives of the musician and those backing his campaign. Penn, who has spent extended periods in Haiti since the devastating January 12 earthquake, told CNN in an interview that Jean had been a "non-presence" during efforts to rebuild the state in the months since the disaster. "He has been virtually silent for those of us in Haiti, he has been a non-p...

Source: afp AFP - Babies lavished with motherly affection are less likely to become anxious and stressed adults, according to an unusual study released Tuesday. ... To get a more objective take on whether mommy's warmth inoculates against grownup unease, researchers led by Joanna Maselko followed up on a study done in the early 1960s in the US state of Rhode Island. ... "We found that objectively observed high levels of affection between mothers and their eight-month infants are associated with...

Source: afp AFP - Workers who lost their jobs when an Isle of Wight wind turbine factory closed down plan to open their own turbine plant on the same industrial estate as the former business. More than 400 workers became redundant when Danish wind power giant Vestas shut its Isle of Wight factory last year, sparking an 18-day sit-in at the factory in Newport. The new company, Sureblades, will start producing micro wind turbine blades in September and will employ a number of ex-Vestas workers,...

Source: bbc Parents-to-be should not be allowed to record ultrasounds on mobile phones or video cameras, pregnancy scans experts say. The Society and College of Radiographers says there are an increasing number of reports of patients trying to make recordings. But it warns sonographers could be distracted, and miss vital signs of problems in the developing baby. ... It says that, as well as the risk of diverting the sonographer's attention at the point when they most need to concentrate, ther...

Source: afp AFP - Veteran US jazz singer Al Jarreau was in a "critical" condition in a French hospital on Friday where he was admitted for respiratory problems, health officials said. Jarreau, 70, who has won several Grammy awards and scores of international music prizes, was taken to the intensive care unit of a clinic in the southern Alpine town of Gap late Thursday, the hospital said in a statement. "Doctors are concerned about his condition," it said. "He is being given appropriate treatm...

Source: guardian Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left. ... Handing down the verdict, Tz...

Source: afp Tonight, under the glare of spotlights and despite the sweltering heat, entertainment-starved spectators in the war-ravaged country are glued to their seats as a daredevil roars inside the Globe of Death on a motorbike. The Jahan (World) company from neighbouring Iran is giving many Iraqis their first-ever circus experience. Children gasp when the circus fakir, whose firm belly has already repelled tossed knives and other sharp objects, stoically withstands a menacing nail pushed ...

Source: amazon.com SEATTLE, Jul 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- (NASDAQ: AMZN) -- Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the #1 bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. It's also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com. Today, Amazon.com announced that Kindle device unit sales accelerated each month in the second quarter--both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis. ... Recent...

the title is provocative. there's been a discussion on LBN about France ban on burka, rejected by UK and US as a move that invades too much the personal sphere of cultural/religious beliefs. i dismiss the idea that wearing burka might be a threat to public safety. that's just hysteria. i concentrate more about the idea of the ban as a promotion of women rights and freedom. anyway the discussion is here, for those interested: (Link) now, feminism and advancement on the path of rights for women...

Eight years ago, President George W. Bush issued a stern policy on sex trafficking in war zones — a policy that remains on the books to this day. With government contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes exceeding the number of U.S. troops, Bush vowed to prosecute employees and suspend or disqualify companies engaging in the trafficking of women. ... But officials say these cases have proven difficult to pursue. The State Department reported recently that allegations of contractor employe...

Source: telegraph The astonishing scene unfolded during a weekend shopping trip after the woman lawyer took offence at the attire of a fellow shopper resulting in argument during which the pair came to blows before being arrested. ... A 26-year-old Muslim convert was walking through the store in Trignac, near Nantes, in the western Loire-Atlantique region, when she overhead the woman lawyer making "snide remarks about her black burka". A police officer close to the case said: "The lawyer said ...

Source: ria novosti A Swedish diver may have found the world's oldest drinkable sparkling wine when he recovered several bottles amid wreckage of a 230-year-old ship in the Baltic Sea, Swedish and Finnish media reported. Fishermen of Finland's Aland archipelago told Christian Ekstrom of the sunken ship several years ago, but the diver thought the vessel was too small and did not worth the risk of a 55-meter dive. He, however, became interested in the ship later and made a dive earlier this wee...

all but holliwoodian atmospheres, all but celebration. the music by radiohead and the director's style add to the anguish of a portrait. judging from what i read and from the trailers, Facebook birth x-rayed looks just like the portrait of individual/mass emotional alteration of well being. i also read that Facebook refused to advertise the movie on its own channels. it will be presented at the New York Film Festival (look ) on sept 24, and out in the US theaters on october 1. the official ...

Source: afp AFP - Overeating combined with the wrong mix of fats in one's diet can cause obesity to be carried over from one generation to the next, researchers in France reported Friday. Omega-6 and omega-3, both polyunsaturated fatty acids, are each critical to good health. But too much of the first and not enough of the second can lead to overweight offspring, the scientists showed in experiments with mice designed to mirror recent shifts in human diet. ... In the breast milk of American w...

Source: ap WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Hundreds of mourners Friday marked the death of a teenage bottlenose dolphin who won hearts and sometimes annoyed New Zealand swimmers and surfers with his boisterous antics. Moko's body, placed in a blue coffin bedecked with flowers, was carried through a seaside town. After a ceremony that drew more than 400 admirers, his casket was loaded on a charter boat that toured his favorite bays. He was buried privately on Matakana Island, where his carcass was f...

Source: afp AFP - When British climbing legend George Mallory took his iconic 1921 photo of Mount Everest's north face, the mighty, river-shaped glacier snaking under his feet seemed eternal. Decades of pollution and global warming later, modern mountaineer David Breashears has reshot the picture at the same spot -- and proved an alarming reality. Instead of the powerful, white, S-shaped sweep of ice witnessed by Mallory before he died on his conquest of Everest, the Main Rongbuk Glacier toda...

Source: ap JERUSALEM – He's a Holocaust survivor dancing with his family on what easily could have been his own grave. A video clip of Adolek Kohn awkwardly shuffling and shimmying with his daughter and grandchildren to the sound of "I Will Survive" at Auschwitz and other sites where millions died during the Holocaust has become an Internet sensation. It's also sparking debate over whether the images show disrespect for those who perished — or are an exuberant celebration of life. ... Adding ...

Source: afp AFP - Last month was the hottest June ever recorded on Earth, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, amid global climate warming worries. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature data also found the January-June and April-June periods were the warmest on record, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which based its findings on measurements that go back as far as 1880. In June, the combined average for global land and ocean ...

Source: afp AFP - Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometres below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming. Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef. Lead researcher Justin Marshall Thursday said his team had also found sev...

... Le jour de gloire est arrivé Contre nous de la tyrannie |: L'étendard sanglant est levé :| Entendez vous dans les campagnes Mugir ces féroces soldats Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras, égorger vos fils, vos compagnes Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons, Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons. 2. Que veut cette horde d'esclaves De traîtres, de Rois conjurés? Pour qui ces ignobles entraves, |: Ces fers dès longtemps préparés? :| Français! pour nous, ah! quel outrage! Q...

Source: the observer Forte dei Marmi – the traditional summer retreat for Italian captains of industry, writers and film stars – is changing the law to try to stop locals fleeing because of house prices driven out of control by incoming Russian millionaires. The town's combative mayor, Umberto Buratti, is reserving space next to luxury villas with sea views for new homes that will only be sold to locally-born buyers or long-term residents. Other Italian resorts with similar problems will monito...

Source: bbc Women in their late 30s are freezing eggs because they are still hunting for "Mr Right", research suggests. A study of women at a Belgian clinic found half wanted to freeze their eggs to take the pressure off finding a partner, a fertility conference heard. A third were also having eggs frozen as an "insurance policy" against infertility. Many students would also consider the procedure to focus on a career before motherhood, a separate UK survey found. Read more: (Link) too ba...

You could call Omar Cedeño many things: a class traitor; a tool of international capitalism; a criminal suspect; even an enemy of Hugo Chávez's socialist revolution. You could also call Cedeño, who sells meat from a cramped shop, a butcher. ... There are fewer jokes these days. Military police recently seized Cedeño and dozens of other butchers on suspicion of overpricing. Cedeño was handcuffed, stripped, interrogated at an army base and charged with speculation. If convicted he faces up to six ...

"For John Catt, protest has never been about chaining himself to a railing or blocking a road in an act of civil disobedience. The 85-year-old peace campaigner's far milder form of dissent typically involves turning up at a demonstration with his daughter, Linda, taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene. However this, it seems, has been enough for police to classify Catt and his 50-year-old daughter "domestic extremists", put their personal information on a clandestine national database ...

Source: afp AFP - A woman's body may be unconsciously selective about sperm, allowing some men's to progress to pregnancy but killing off the chances of less suitable matches, an Australian researcher said Wednesday. University of Adelaide professor Sarah Robertson said her research suggested that sperm contains "signalling molecules" that activate immunity changes in a woman so her body accepts it. But some apparently healthy sperm failed to activate these changes, leading to the suggestion ...

Source: afp AFP - More than 200 scientists and experts Tuesday called on the International Whaling Commission to maintain its ban on commercial whaling to ensure the future of species depleted by industrial hunting. "The IWC must not undermine the conservation achievements of the last few decades by again endorsing commercial whaling," they said in a petition. "There is no evidence that any of the few populations and species known to be increasing have reached, or are anywhere near, the level...